VEX Challenge No1

How do you clear leaves from Trainlines? Well, Network Rail have some solutions in place but could our younger generation of engineers come up with something better?

So today 8 of our VEX teams from across the Tees Valley were challenged to do just that. They were given the luxury of creating their own rails (60cm long) because maybe the design of the rail structure is part of the solution. They then had to think about how their VEX bots could be adapted to solve the problem. We have steered away from the coding use of the robots in our challenges because there are so many possibilities for problem solving and creativity purely from the engineering side. The children have really risen to the task and several were a bit loathe to go for lunch. Having last night attended the latest Q4 debate that showcased how bright the future, especially in engineering, is for our younger generations in the Tees Valley, this sort of approach seems to me a sensible one. In a few years when some of the world’s most innovative, large scale engineering projects come online due to the work currently being done by Tees Valley Combined Authority and the South Tees Development Corporation, these are the very children who should be taking many of the fantastic careers available. Events like these are used to both develop problem solving skills and creative thinking whilst linking their work to what is going on with local industry.